Utopia, C4&HD, 10pm, 15-22-29 Jan 5-12 Feb

Comments

Wilson was the other part that annoyed and didn't convince me. Firstly, for most of this series, he's looked like a...yup, a psycho pirate! Possibly with a slight dash of 60's Carnaby Street chic. The characterisation of him as a villain was so darn cheesey.

Also, the idea of an organisation as serious and secretive as The Network allowing an outsider-let alone one as crazy, inconsistent and just plain random as him-into the organisation, let alone at the very top of it, is more ridiculous than anything else in the show. It takes it from the realm of sci-fi into that of silly children's fiction.

And I haven't even mentioned the naffness of the Anton/Carvil storyline!

I totally agree with you, Wilson just doesn't work as the top guy of the organisation, how the hell did this happen, he flits from old wilson and new nutter wilson from scenes you really don't know what the hell has happened to him to turn up so far to the dark side.

Its so well done in places but it was just annoying to watch as well with scrappy unbelievable twists that just felt naff and didn't fit with the slickness of certain parts.
Yeah I'll watch again as it still has potential and when its good its one if the most unique things ever put out in this country.

The thing I'm most disappointed about is that scene with Wilson and Dugdale near to the end of the episode, where Wilson starts to ramble on about releasing Janus in isolated locations. Threatening Dugdale's family has become somewhat of a Network family tradition, so it didn't take long for Wilson to start dishing out the same old threats against the poor guy's family and forcing him to continue working for the Network.

I think the lack of originality was the point. Wilson has fallen into Network ways.

The scene implies that Series 3 will once again revolve around the Network's attempts to unleash Janus on the population, only this time with Wilson as Mr Rabbit. The show is in danger of becoming repetitive if that is the case.

I agree. Actually, it's already repetitive. Both series ended with the evil plan being defeated temporarily. I think it should have succeeded and the third series been about dealing with the new world order. I guess that would have cost too much.

As I recall, when series 1 ended I said there didn't need to be a sequel, and everyone else disagreed. Now I quite enjoyed this series, and everyone else seems disappointed. To me what we saw just confirmed what I originally thought. The story was told at the end of series 1, and the second series was prolonging it artificially.

The Network can call on some of the world's deadliest killers, why would they need some goofy conspiracy theorist to help them? It's hard to believe they would recruit this man to work as an assassin, but it's even harder to believe that this man could then become the leader of the most powerful organisation on the planet. Surely there were other more suitable candidates for the job? The Network need to sort out their employment policy ASAP!

I suspect the Network is really quite small. We often see them using police, but I don't think they have a standing force of their own. Arby and Lee might have been their only full-time operatives. They have Leah and a lot of money, and they have influence, and they hire or coerce, but few people have the big picture.

Wilson happened to be in the right place at the right time. The key was that only he and Leah knew that Mr Rabbit was dead, and she concealed that with him. That got him into the hot seat giving orders, and he turned out to have an aptitude for it. Leah would not have coped on her own.

Lee came back, I feel, because many had
liked his character rather than it was important for the story or satisfying in its own way.
(He did have some great scenes nonetheless).

I agree with much of what you say, but not this. Lee surely wasn't that popular, and he was eliminated relatively early in series 1. Bringing him back was important, first for Wilson's character, to highlight his evolution; and secondly for Arby's. In other words, it was for character reasons rather than plot reasons, but not to please the audience. (And perhaps for laziness. Someone else could have brought Arby back, but a new person would not have had the same resonance as Lee.)

I suspect the Network is really quite small. We often see them using police, but I don't think they have a standing force of their own. Arby and Lee might have been their only full-time operatives. They have Leah and a lot of money, and they have influence, and they hire or coerce, but few people have the big picture.

I don't know the minors in and outs of what the network was all about but surely they would of needed to of been quite large to pull something of this scale off globally. I guess though they employ people on a need to know basis. Lots of people do anything for money without asking questions I would guess.

This series was so tedious to get through and I almost gave up by Episode 4. Like most here, I adored the first episode, so I was disappointed when it returned to the present day and more boring hyper-violence. There's a vaccine, there isn't a vaccine, there's flu, there isn't flu, blah-blah-blah...

I suppose I'm a bit jaded with disappointment. There was nothing like it when it first aired, but now the characters are unlikeable and the humour has dimmed. There aren't many shows I can say I'm only in it for the cinematography and music, but this series was.